Profound emotional experiences

Rumraket · #1 by **Rumraket** » Dec 07, 2011 9:18 pm

.. and getting that sense of incomprehensible depth, time and distance. Or contemplating deep geological time and life's evolution through it, the formation and erosion of continents and mountainranges. Or when looking at vast stretches of landscape from a great viewpoint and trying to "take it all in".
And interestingly, lately, I seem to be able to manifest it in myself when I'm in a particular mood and I watch the opening to the first episode of Cosmos with Carl Sagan(his delivery is perfect).
I had a particularly vivid one a few weeks ago when I was a bit depressed, very tired, had ate too much dark chocolate (seriously :lol:

), watched the opening of Cosmos and went to bed, I couldn't sleep because of this overwhelming emotional state of feeling alive and being part of existence, trying to think about it's inherent "mystery"/fundamental nature, the possibility of life elswhere. Feeling humbled at the size and age of the universe etc.

Anyone else have them? What would you describe it as? If you'd been religious, would you consider it a 'religious' experience?

Paul G · #2 by **Paul G** » Dec 07, 2011 9:57 pm

Certainly not religious, I just feel very connected, it's more like an epiphany and sense of understanding. I don't feel inferior, humbled or not worthy.

I don't really get it with stars, more with isolation in scenic places, especially surrounded by wildlife.

Lance · #3 by **Lance** » Dec 07, 2011 11:29 pm

I got that with the opening sequence of the first of the Star Wars movies.

The special effects of that impact were unique way back then, and it got me.

Animavore · #4 by **Animavore** » Dec 07, 2011 11:39 pm

I just describe it as 'awesome'. Although in the past I've described it as 'cool', 'mad', 'crazy' or didn't bother trying to describe it at all depending on my ever-shifting lexicon.
The idea of describing it as religious never occured to me. I think this because when I read descriptions of religious experience they always came across as far more fantastical than these temporal feelings of wonderment. I always looked for something beyond my normal and average experience in that short phase I did look into spirituality.

LarianLeQuella · #5 by **LarianLeQuella** » Dec 08, 2011 2:58 pm

An extreme sense of wonderment and outright awe is what I feel when I contemplate both my insignificance and connection to the universe.

falconjudge · #6 by **falconjudge** » Dec 08, 2011 3:03 pm

It's beautiful how much we simply don't know.

Rumraket · #7 by **Rumraket** » Dec 08, 2011 3:04 pm

Animavore wrote:I just describe it as 'awesome'. Although in the past I've described it as 'cool', 'mad', 'crazy' or didn't bother trying to describe it at all depending on my ever-shifting lexicon.

I think it's hard to really describe, there's probably not a single word for it. Awe is definitely part of it though, awe, wonder and amazement.

Animavore wrote:The idea of describing it as religious never occured to me. I think this because when I read descriptions of religious experience they always came across as far more fantastical than these temporal feelings of wonderment.

I think we've heard quite a few ridiculous stories on this forum about people hearing voices and feeling a "presence" in their religious experiences, so in that context I would agree it's nothing like that.

trubble76 · #8 by **trubble76** » Dec 08, 2011 3:06 pm

I get that feeling, and it tends to mirror my mental state at the time. If I'm unhappy, it makes me feels insignificant and pointless, but when I'm in a good mood it makes me feel euphoric (probably a slight exageration, but you know..). i don't think either is necessarily wrong.

Rumraket · #9 by **Rumraket** » Dec 08, 2011 3:08 pm

Paul G wrote:Certainly not religious, I just feel very connected, it's more like an epiphany and sense of understanding. I don't feel inferior, humbled or not worthy.

I don't mean to imply something akin to unworthiness or inferiority when I use the word humbling myself. It's more a sense of knowing that you are a tiny speck out of a grand picture, that not only is there more than yourself and your daily petty concerns, there's so unfathomably much more.

Paul G wrote:I don't really get it with stars, more with isolation in scenic places, especially surrounded by wildlife.

I like to look at animals, though that's more because I like to think about how their minds work, what kinds of thoughts they have, how they experience their consciousness.

Rumraket · **#10** by **Rumraket** » Dec 08, 2011 3:09 pm

falconjudge wrote:It's beautiful how much we simply don't know.

So many unexplored worlds with unimaginable environments. :thumbup:

orpheus · **#11** by **orpheus** » Dec 08, 2011 11:40 pm

Many things do this for me. One example:

I often think of that great verse of Chesterton's:

G.K. Chesterton wrote:
Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.

One night, I saw the monster. I was living in Finland at the time, and staying one winter in the forest, many miles from the nearest city. Late one night I had to leave the cabin briefly. Now, most of my life I've been a city boy, and am used to a night sky filled with light pollution, with a paltry selection of stars visible. But that night in a clearing in the Finnish forest, I happened to look up - and felt my skin crawl with shock. Because there above me the monster had been silently waiting: a black sky ablaze with stars - so many stars, and seemingly so close in that clear cold air.

Animavore · **#12** by **Animavore** » Dec 08, 2011 11:59 pm

This poem by Emily Dickinson does that to me.

THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.

The very poem is about comprehension.

I also remember the first time seeing the Milky Way free from light pollution in the Wicklow Mountains outside Dublin.

chairman bill · **#13** by **chairman bill** » Dec 09, 2011 12:17 am

It's the thought that on a distant planet, a being is looking up at the stars, circling around one of which is a tiny blue planet, with this other being looking up at the stars, circling around one of which is a planet ... and so I'm connected to another living being, many light years away. And yes, I know that the star I'm looking at, with that planet, with the being looking up at the stars, is so far away that that being is no longer alive, or when it's looking up at the star our planet is revolving around, the me stood looking back is no longer there. And that just adds to the wonder of it all. Two beings, looking at each other's star, but seeing that star at a time when the other isn't there yet, or is long gone.

Fallible · **#14** by **Fallible** » Dec 09, 2011 12:18 am

Just tonight I was out walking the dog and I looked up, saw the moon and a little to the right and up, a bright 'star' with a yellow tinge. I know nothing about astronomy or anything, so I didn't know what it was. Turned out it was Jupiter (looked on my Google Skymap app :mrgreen:

). This is probably quite a mundane occurrence for all you stargazers, but I spend my time immersed in earthly stresses and rarely give myself time to look up. So when I got home I dragged my poor daughter out to look at it, and we both stood there in gale force winds, looking at this planet millions of miles away and yet so bright, drifting in and out of the rushing clouds. Over all that distance, nothing impeding our view of it down here, and us two little specks on Earth, here because our ancestors chose to reproduce. I got the feeling I used to get looking at my dad's astronomy books with black and white photos when I was a kid - by some quirk I'm here to see this shit, and it's a privilege. Awesome is the only word. Fuck God, that's the real rush.

Fallible · **#15** by **Fallible** » Dec 09, 2011 12:20 am

chairman bill wrote:It's the thought that on a distant planet, a being is looking up at the stars, circling around one of which is a tiny blue planet, with this other being looking up at the stars, circling around one of which is a planet ... and so I'm connected to another living being, many light years away. And yes, I know that the star I'm looking at, with that planet, with the being looking up at the stars, is so far away that that being is no longer alive, or when it's looking up at the star our planet is revolving around, the me stood looking back is no longer there. And that just adds to the wonder of it all. Two beings, looking at each other's star, but seeing that star at a time when the other isn't there yet, or is long gone.

OK, you broke my brain. :clap:

orpheus · **#16** by **orpheus** » Dec 09, 2011 12:21 am

Fallible & chairman bill: :clap:

Varangian · **#17** by **Varangian** » Dec 09, 2011 12:21 am

I was an amateur astronomer when I was a teenager, and standing there in the night, feeling that I was standing on a tiny mote hurtling through the vast universe, seeing the Milky Way stretching across the sky and knowing that there are many billions of other galaxies out there, so far away that the mind struggles to grasp it, seeing light from the Andromeda galaxy that started out log before the rise of Man... Well, it filled me with a sense of wonder. Later, when I learned that we are essentially stardust, that feeling got another dimension, and when (I think) Carl Sagan wrote that we are all part of the universe, experiencing itself for a brief flicker of time... well, then it all came full circle. The feeling isn't religious in the least, yet it is more awesome and true than any bollocks spouted by some collared witch-doctor.

Tero · **#18** by **Tero** » Dec 09, 2011 12:27 am

I don't especially seek emotional experiences. Music can work at times and set the mood. And they drag me to movies where you empathize but I don't seek those myself.

I am much happier solving a problem.

Fallible · **#19** by **Fallible** » Dec 09, 2011 12:27 am

orpheus wrote:Fallible & chairman bill:

And you!

Fallible · **#20** by **Fallible** » Dec 09, 2011 12:30 am

Varangian wrote:I was an amateur astronomer when I was a teenager, and standing there in the night, feeling that I was standing on a tiny mote hurtling through the vast universe, seeing the Milky Way stretching across the sky and knowing that there are many billions of other galaxies out there, so far away that the mind struggles to grasp it, seeing light from the Andromeda galaxy that started out log before the rise of Man... Well, it filled me with a sense of wonder. Later, when I learned that we are essentially stardust, that feeling got another dimension, and when (I think) Carl Sagan wrote that we are all part of the universe, experiencing itself for a brief flicker of time... well, then it all came full circle. The feeling isn't religious in the least, yet it is more awesome and true than any bollocks spouted by some collared witch-doctor.